We Have Always Been . . . Friends
by Liana Goldenquill
Summary: Rosethorn’s POV about her ongoing relationship with Lark, to get me out of the block I’m in on “I’ve Never Told Anyone Before.” Lark/Rosethorn shoujo ai, sex extremely mild, feelings a little less so.


**Severe writers' block on _I've Never Told Anyone Before_ led me to write this mental self-conversation from Rosethorn's POV. Poor, poor misunderstood Rosethorn without Lark! Again, shoujo ai warning . . . I hope I don't need to make this a habit. . . .**

I don't understand this. I've absolutely never felt this way before, and certainly never about . . . not about a woman. The problem isn't that I don't know what I'm feeling—I know exactly what I'm feeling. The problem is that I don't know why, or what to do about it.

Of course I love Lark. Of course I do—we're friends, best friends. She's the only one who can tolerate my company, even when I'm snappish or self-absorbed. It's only natural that I'd appreciate her, and, having done so, that I'd become fond of her, and then that I would love her. But I'm only supposed to love her as a friend, the way she loves me.

Something went wrong here, and the god of irony is laughing. Because I do love her as a friend, as I'm supposed to, but now I also love her as something more. Irony is what sleeps with me now, what wakes with me and lives with me, because, while I have always been attracted to men, Lark has always loved women. And now, _I_ do.

She hasn't tried to sway me to her way of loving. She hasn't seduced me with clever arguments. She has only ever acted as a friend to me, and love and sex have never been so much as mentioned between us. Lark hasn't ever acted improperly—I've never heard her loving through the walls, if indeed she does engage in such—and I've never seen her nude from the bathhouse.

But now, I long to, and I don't know why.  Her golden skin, nipples a shade darker, and her curly, deep black hair hold an allure for me, an allure even stronger because I've never seen it.  And when I lie awake at night, unsatisfied although I've masturbated, I know that my imagination can never measure up to the unfathomable reality beneath the Earth-dedicate habit, deep green just like mine.

Logically, it makes some vague and cloudy sense. Why love someone you can't understand, and who better to understand a woman than another? Who better to love _me_ than the one person who has always shown me how much she cares?

Sex has always been so unimportant to me. I've tried once or twice, always with males, and it seems so trivial. I've experienced better emotions just working with magic, or being alone with the earth. Crane and others have tried to convince me that every woman needs a man, but I have never seen why. Even when young, I knew where I was going, and I could always accomplish what I needed to on my own.

And then, when I was fifteen and she was thirteen, Lark arrived at Winding Circle. Two years younger than me, and she was put in my class of initiates. From the day she walked in, I could feel the magic and power emanating from her, and I knew we would be friends. The classes we had then dwelt upon working from the power deep inside yourself, and from the magic the gods chose to grant you and you alone. We never learned how to perfectly join our magics and work as a pair or as a team—but as we grew, we became inseparable outside of class, until we hardly went anywhere on our own. 

Then the attack on Winding Circle, three years after we'd met, the year after we became Earth dedicates—the pirates came. Common riffraff, but they had some magic behind them in charms, odd charms we'd never seen before, that we thought had been produced by Traders, perhaps, or some people we'd never heard of.

That year the firm brick fence the pirates built moved steadily closer to Winding Circle and our temples, as we threw ourselves up against it, pounding helplessly like the sea's waves and oftentimes being crushed beneath its unremitting progress. Everyone had their try at defeating the pirates, but each worked alone. And alone, of course, each failed miserably.

It was fifteen years ago—hard to imagine, but true. Fifteen years ago when the pair of us discovered our own type of magic. Everyone had tried, and everyone had failed, and one night, the pirates' confines around us, land and sea, were so tight that I felt as though I were stifling. Closer and closer they came, until fifteen years ago, when I snuck out of my dormitory and found Lark waiting for me outside, leaning against a tree. "I knew you would try," she whispered, and followed me to the seawall where I would test my strength.

There I tried, with all the force of my mind, and all the strength I could plead from the gods and the earth, and there I fell, panting with weakness. For all of my attempts, not a thing had been accomplished, and the pirates had never even noted my power flung against their wall.

And there was Lark. Sitting on the seawall's parapet, she flung herself at me when I fell—she must have thought I'd died like the many others with more power, _noticeable_ power. When I stirred, looked up at her from flat on my back, her liquid brown eyes were nearly full of tears, shining in the moonlight. Lark spoke to me; the first thing she said was "There's something I want to try."

I had no objection; I would have trusted her with my life, but she insisted on explaining to me what she was going about—and that it would hurt me. Still, I agreed, without reservation. I knew that she would never hurt me, that her warnings came from caution for me and not from any actual danger. I understood what she wanted me to try, and I would obey her wishes. As I was still lying there, she pulled my head into her lap and closed her eyes tightly, and it happened.

My mind was obliterated, blasted from my skull with her unrefined power. Tears squeezed from my eyes as I stubbornly held strong and acted as her processor throughout the mental rape. When I had sharpened her power to its purest, it had built incredibly, and my brain was holding it all. With a scream, I flung it at the pirates' wall and fell into darkness, wanting to die to escape the pain.

When I woke in the cold clean infirmary, I thought I was alone, but Lark was there. Just knowing her presence, the crisp white medicinal smell changed to a creamy vanilla candle-lit atmosphere—she made everything more livable for me, softened and sanded away my rough edges. I did not shy away from her; no matter what she had done to me, it had been my fault for not believing her warning. I have always taken on blame forthrightly, when deserved, and I knew who deserved it this time. It was entirely my fault.

Before Lark told anyone I was awake, she stroked my line of jaw and cheek and whispered to me as tears rolled down her face and she had to look away. She told me how it had felt for her when I screamed and went limp, how she had waited these two weeks at my bedside nearly without sleep or food. How she had missed me, and how she had thought she had killed me.

Before I let her bring the nurse in, I forced her to do one thing for me. I made the gentle Lark pour her power through me again, although this time I knew what I risked. She would grant me only the tiniest trickle to purify, and when I had finished, the balance seemed as nothing to me. It was painless. With a gentle touch of my mind, I lit a nearby candle—and the action that had caused me to simulate death had no effect upon me now. Although I had expended some of a tiny amount of her power, I could not tell the difference. When she opened her mind to me, I returned the magic to her.

Lark swallowed, in the grip of some emotion. "Tenfold," she whispered hoarsely, "you amplify." Once more I opened my mind to her, finding her mind open to me. Her power, sloshing like a warm bath, joined the two of us in a feeling I had never felt before—pleasure immeasurable.

Since then, I have always been her focus, straining and refining her raw power before she pours it into the world, and she has always been the deep force behind me, silent until stirred. Each time she focuses power through me, the mental pleasure returns until it is nearly unbearable. But never once have I asked her if the sensation was shared.

Lark and I, although we reside together, live strictly apart, sharing a cottage but not a bedroom. We have never discussed sex or love. She has had lovers since that time fifteen years ago, all female. For my part, I have once or twice tried to recreate the feeling with males and without magic, but it has never worked.

Lark, as well as I know, has had a lover from the Air temple for the past few months, while I have been celibate since the ill-fated time with Crane six years ago.

And now I feel jealousy for the position of the Air dedicate, she who loves and is loved by Lark. I don't know her name, have only seen her leaving as I entered or entering as I left a few times—but I want to be her so badly. Lark seems to me now the epitome of everything unattainable and perfect, and I want to be in Lark's bed.

I want to be in Lark's bed, although I have never before loved a woman, and didn't know such love was possible for me until perhaps a month ago. I still don't even know how the physical act would be accomplished, but sex is relatively unimportant. In that area, I get what I need from our shared magic—it is enough for me.

What I really want from Lark, and want to give to Lark, is just love—and touch. When we sit side-by-side, I want to snuggle my head into her shoulder. When we walk together, I want to hold hands. When she's cold, I want to give her my warmth, and when she's lonely, I want to offer my shoulder. When we see each other across a crowded room, I want her to wink to me and know the secret we share. When we speak to each other, I want our words to have hidden meanings for only her and me.

When there's nothing to say, I want to hear "I love you."

And as long as we exist, I want her to know that, although I may be confused, I will love her unconditionally.

It would be nice, too, if I knew that she loved me in the same way. . . .


End file.
